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Tf3: A Musical Hybrid
By Caroline Manring John Lennon, Bach, Imogen Heap, Arlo Guthrie, KD Lang—Time for Three, or Tf3, pretty much utters them all in one breath on their website, without really trying. That’s because they’re the real deal. This “classically trained garage band” asserts with its wood and wire (two violins and an upright bass) that there’s a definite, beautiful, and exciting place in the world for all of us “tweens”. And that’s not just an age; a “tween” could be someone between childhood and adulthood, retirement and the next project, grunge rock and bluegrass, or a handwritten letter and the text message. We all need a way to feel at home on the earth despite these competing forces, and at times the result can be giving up a little of what you love in one direction to get something in the other. But what the guys of Tf3 do is decidedly not a compromise, or cobbled together, or lost in translation, or even a synthesis—it just is its own thing. What a relief in an age of having to choose between your roots and opportunity. How does that happen? Back to the epithet “classically trained garage band.” What could that possibly mean? Well, take a kid and raise him up doing hours of finger exercises for violin and learning the difference between forte and mezzo forte or détaché and marcato. This is like giving him a strong skeleton to work with. Then send him to, say, the Curtis Institute, where he’ll build the muscles of knowledge, discipline, dedication, insight, patience… until they’re completely buff. Now he’s a perfectly polished classical player, with all the depth and strength necessary to take on Symphony Hall in any major city in the world. But don’t forget his dangerous penchant for high-speed country western fiddling, a harebrained love of the impromptu, the split-second judgment of a jazz improviser, and a relaxed, gutsy attitude that lets him and his friend stand up from the ranks of the Philadelphia Orchestra during a power outage and entertain the restless audience with “Ragtime Annie” and “Orange Blossom Special.” That’s a true story—and the crowd went absolutely wild. Now multiply all that by three, and you have Tf3: Zachary DePue and Nicolas Kendall, violin, Ranaan Meyer, bass—and the sky as the limit. Let me make first a disclaimer and then a prediction: 1) Disclaimer: if you go to their website, Tf3.com, you may, like me, end up immediately buying their “featured track,” which is a really cool arrangement of Imogen Heap’s strange, gorgeous piece, “Hide and Seek”—or, for that matter, one of their full albums; 2) Prediction (and I’ll be taking bets on this): The audience at these concerts will be unable to sit still and will holler til it’s hoarse. Your need for classical precision and grace, utterly satiated, will be able to step aside for the devilish hooligan in you, or the hopeless romantic, or the adrenaline junky, or the child who danced, completely consumed by the music and the moment at her ballet recital, or the kid who grooved beside the giant speakers in his parents’ living room—turned up loud, real loud—until his feet were sore. And that’s just part of Week One of the 2010 Skaneateles Festival. In that same spirit of timeless quality, the festival brings you America's premier piano trio, Trio Solisti, and a special visit from Paul Moravec for the performance of his phenomenal work, Tempest Fantasy. In addition to their fine musical performances, these artists will be offering a FREE FamilyFest! multimedia adventure through Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, pre-concert “behind the scenes” chats, and readings from Shakespeare to complement Moravec’s original masterpiece. To find more information, purchase individual tickets, week or season passes, or to see a full schedule of events, visit www.skanfest.org, call the Festival office at (315) 685-7418 or just stop by (97 East Genesee St., in the basement of the beautiful Presbyterian Church).
Week One: Time for Three We explore the great variety of music written (and improvised) for varying combinations of three players. From America’s premier piano trio, Trio Solisti, to the category-shattering, “classically trained garage band,” Tf3, we’ll cover a huge range of styles and genres. The visit of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec highlights the performance of his phenomenal masterpiece, Tempest Fantasy. Wednesday, August 11 - 11:00 AM Maria Bachmann, violin; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Jon Klibonoff, piano FREE Wednesday, August 11 - 2:00-3:00 PM Trio Solisti (Maria Bachmann, violin; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Jon Klibonoff, piano) and Alan Kay rehearse the Pulitzer-prize winning Tempest Fantasy with composer Paul Moravec. Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles Thursday, August 12 - 7:00 PM Join composer Paul Moravec and some of tonight's performers as he discusses his works: Passacaglia and Scherzo. FREE for concert ticket-holders. Thursday, August 12 - 8:00 PM Dohnanyi Serenade for String Trio in C Major, Op. 10 Featuring: Trio Solisti(Maria Bachmann, violin; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Jon Klibonoff, piano) and Philip Ying, viola Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
Join composer Paul Moravec and some of tonight's performers as they discuss his work: Tempest Fantasy. FREE for concert ticket-holders. Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
Schubert Notturno in E-flat Major, D. 897 Featuring: Elinor Freer, piano; Malcolm Ingram, reader; Alan Kay, clarinet; Trio Solisti (Maria Bachmann, violin; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Jon Klibonoff, piano); David Ying, cello Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
featuring: Zachary De Pue, violin; Nicolas Kendall, violin; and Ranaan Meyer, double bass The groundbreaking, category-shattering trio Time for Three transcends traditional classification, with elements of classical, country western, gypsy and jazz idioms forming a blend all its own.
Revel in the music of centuries past. Lionheart, one of the county’s foremost vocal chamber music ensembles, makes its festival debut with a program of rarely heard music from Renaissance Spain interwoven with the mystical sounds of Gregorian chant. Then enjoy works from the great Baroque masters performed on period instruments by the players of New York State Baroque. Finally, the festival chamber orchestra will serenade you with Handel’s beloved Water Music and Stravinsky’s take on Baroque music.
A one-of-a-kind event... this evening features a gorgeous Skaneateles home, gourmet food and, of course, terrific music by the vocal ensemble Lionheart.
Lionheart presents El Siglo d'Oro: this program will feature motets, Gregorian chants, spiritual songs and villanescas from 16th-century Spain. As the centerpiece, Lionheart will sing Cristobal Morale's rarely heard 'Ave Maria' Mass from 1544. Other works will include Francisco Guerrero's Canciones y Villanescas Espirituales from 1589 and Gregorian Chants for the Feast of the Annunciation. featuring: Lionheart (Lawrence Lipnik, countertenor; John Olund, Michael Ryan-Wenger, tenors; Jeffrey Johnson, Richard Porterfield, baritones; Kurt-Owen Richards, bass) ***NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION*** Concert location: St. Mary's of the Lake, 81 Jordan St., Skaneateles
Schmelzer Suite a 4 Featuring: NYS Baroque (Debra Nagy, oboe and recorder; Julie Andrijeski, concertmaster; Boel Gidholm, violin; Daniel Elyar, viola; David Morris, cello and viol; Heather Miller Lardin, violone; David Yearsley, harpsichord) Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
Robert Moody, conductor Respighi Ancient Airs and Dances, Set 1
All the passion, mystery and beauty that make Russian music so uniquely captivating are richly present in this program: Old Russian Folk melodies, lush Slavic romanticism, the exoticism of Rimsky-Korsakov, the emotional power of Tchaikovsky, and a French twist on Russian tunes—you'll hear it all during this incredible Russian musical feast. Wednesday, August 25 - 2:00 PM featuring: Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Kathy Halvorson , oboe; Pascal Archer, clarinet; Erik Holtje, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn Concert location: Anyela's Vineyards, 2433 West Lake Road, Skaneateles
Saint-Saens Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs, Op. 79 for Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, and Piano Featuring: Elinor Freer, piano; Spencer Myer, piano; Sylvan Winds (Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Kathy Halvorson , oboe; Pascal Archer, clarinet; Erik Holtje, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn); Ying Quartet (Frank Huang and Janet Ying, violin; Philip Ying, viola; David Ying, cello) Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
Liadov Eight Russian Folksongs, Op. 58 Featuring: Spencer Myer, piano; Sylvan Winds (Svjetlana Kabalin, flute; Kathy Halvorson , oboe; Pascal Archer, clarinet; Erik Holtje, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn); Ying Quartet (Frank Huang and Janet Ying, violin; Philip Ying, viola; David Ying, cello) Concert location: First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles
Joshua Weilerstein, conductor Borodin Nocturne Concert location: Brook Farm, 2.5 miles south of the village on Route 41A, Skaneateles (Rain location: Skaneateles High School, 49 E. Elizabeth St., Skaneateles)
Join us for the return of violin superstar Hilary Hahn. She and her two exceptional friends, Ukrainian-born piano sensation Valentina Lisita, and the celebrated cellist Robert deMaine, will dazzle us. Witness the musical fireworks as these three perform some of the greatest chamber music ever written. Hilary and SYracuse Symphony Orchestra maestro Daniel Hege close the season with a performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto in A Major and Schubert’s great Fifth Symphony.
FREE
Kodaly Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 Featuring: Hilary Hahn, violin; Valentina Lisitsa, piano; Robert deMaine, cello Concert location: Skaneateles High School, 49 E. Elizabeth St., Skaneateles
Beethoven Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, Op. 24 "Spring" Featuring: Hilary Hahn, violin; Valentina Lisitsa, piano; Robert deMaine, cello Concert location: Skaneateles High School, 49 E. Elizabeth St., Skaneateles
Daniel Hege, conductor Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219 Concert location: Skaneateles High School, 49 E. Elizabeth St., Skaneateles
is violinist Alicia Friedrichs. Alicia will be featured in a Prelude Concert on Friday, August 20, 2010. She will be performing the 1st movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major; Meditation from Thais by Jules Massenet and a movement of a Beethoven Trio with Artistic Directors David Ying and Elinor Freer. Alicia will also be performing on Saturday, August 21 as one of the violinists for Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B minor. Alicia graduated from Fayetteville-Manlius High School in June 2010. During her four years at FM, she participated in Chamber Orchestra, Pit Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra, and Choir. She has also been a member of the Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra for the last four years, having been named concertmaster for the 2009 1st cycle. In 2008 and 2009, she participated in the Conference All-State String Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra 1st violin sections, respectively. Last summer, Alicia attended the New York State Summer School for the Arts School of Orchestral Studies as a 2009 F. Ludwig Diehn Scholarship recipient. In 2010, Alicia was the recipient of the Bruce McCormick Music Scholarship and the Syracuse Symphony Association Sally Whittle Scholarship. Alicia is a member of the National Honor Society and Tri-M Music Honor Society. She has studied with Carol Sasson, a member of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and with Nancy Fennessy. This fall, Alicia will pursue a Bachelor of Music degree with a major in violin performance at the Eastman School of Music.
By Caroline Manring Thoughts on chamber music, youth, the cosmos, and your own back yard, as brought to you by the Skaneateles Festival One of the greatest pleasures of my life was being in a pretty darn good amateur string quartet during college. We hadn't just learnt the piece: we'd studied each other for a whole semester, from the way we breathed to our individual internal tempos, which tugged on each other, intermingled, and finally became a new entity altogether-like space debris accreting to make a new planet. OK, maybe not Jupiter, exactly, seeing as the group was comprised of computer engineers and English majors, but a planet nonetheless (maybe a smaller planet, or a demoted one-maybe Pluto). In any case, when you can try on the psyches of others in this way, share in their presence to the extent that you inhabit their experience as well as your own, your reality blasts open and becomes huge, both in scope and depth. Thank you, chamber music. May I have another? I think there was something to say for youth in our scenario: none of us was older than twenty-five, none had real obligations other than college, and all felt impossibly bright about our infinite prospects, the endless permutations of circumstance and will that we were sure we could choose from as easily as picking a roadside flower. These convictions couldn't help but fuel an already intense activity. I thought of all this because of a review of the Jupiter Quartet, soon to appear at the Skaneateles Festival, by Toronto's The Live Music Report: The fire and sweetness of youth is what the Jupiter Quartet brought to their recital. Fire and sweetness. Hm. Youth itself can be credited for a certain amount of fire, but there are lots of young, fiery people out there who can't quite manage that second, more elusive quality of sweetness. Ironically, to embody the sweetness of youth in a performance, I think a group must have more than just youth. That is to say, sweetness has something to do with openness, engagement, the sympathetic vibration between the watched and the watcher, between the flower and the wind that moves it. You could call it awareness. And who better to be aware of one another than siblings? Or partners? The Jupiter Quartet has both. Violinist Meg Freivogel grew up playing in often quite raucous quartets with her sister, Liz Freivogel, who is a violist, and their two brothers. Later on, Meg met Nelson Lee (violin) and Daniel McDonough (cello) at the Cleveland Institute of Music. When the time came to fill the fourth spot, the role of violist-you guessed it-Meg had the perfect suggestion: how about sister Liz? Half of the quartet was related, and was apparently fated to be three-quarters related: Meg and Daniel were married, which also made the violist the cellist's sister-in-law. I would say I can only imagine the musical results of such a cosmos of bonds, but 1) I don't have to, because I can go hear them next week at the Festival, and 2) the reviews speak for themselves. The pleasure they take in one another's company was palpable, says the Boston Globe. Taut and warm-hued is the way the New York Times feels the group's singular chemistry. New York Concert Reviews Inc puts it this way: [Their] intensity of spirit, which they consistently engaged throughout the evening, will perhaps be one of their signature trademarks. Chamber music repertoire itself is based on an intensity of spirit-the expectation that a distillation of a composer's experience of the world into just a few instruments and players is not only possible, but can also be brilliantly effective. When you put chamber music in the hands of a group whose fire galvanizes and sweetness sculpts a natural intensity you get-well, you get another world. Hear the Jupiter Quartet and experience other chamber groups during Week Three of the Skaneateles Festival, titled I Love New York for its celebration of the composers, performers, and pieces from beautiful, history-rich New York State. Saturday's concert will bring Broadway to Brook Farm, while the week's activities and concerts (Tuesday through Friday) feature such delights as Dvorak's American quartet, tunes from West Side Story, and the world premiere of Summer Songs by Carter Pann. From New York State to the biggest planet in the solar system, you can experience all that chamber music has to offer at the Skaneateles Festival.
inspired by poems about Central New York By Melinda Johnson, Arts Editor Composer Carter Pann visits Skaneateles for the first time this week and is curious about the lakeside village's tempo. Pann knows a little something about the region after reading poems describing its lakes, music, musicians, summertime and life in Central New York. Earlier this year, he read 15 poems, finalists from the more than 100 submitted in a contest organized by the Skaneateles Festival. The poems served as inspiration for a fest-commissioned composition by Pann, who is based in Boulder, Colo. "Summer Songs," the title of the piece, will premiere Friday at the music fest. Five of the poems (see below) struck a chord, so to speak, with Pann. He set two parameters for his final selection. "Will these poems go together as a set nicely and could I order them in a way that would translate musically, in good musical order," he says during a phone interview. And "the poems, something about them had to jump off the page pretty immediately for me to want to set the gist of them to music." Read more at Syracuse.com
By Caroline Manring Skaneateles, NY -- One of the greatest pleasures of my life was playing viola in a pretty darn good amateur string quartet. We hadn't just learned the piece: We'd studied each other for a whole semester, from the way we breathed to our individual internal tempos. We tugged on each other, intermingled and finally became a new entity altogether, like space debris accreting to make a new planet. OK, maybe not Jupiter, exactly, seeing as the group was comprised of computer engineers and English majors, but a planet nonetheless (maybe a smaller planet, or a demoted one -- maybe Pluto). In any case, when you can "try on" the psyches of others in this way, share in their presence to the extent that you inhabit their experience as well as your own, your reality blasts open and becomes huge, both in scope and depth. Thank you, chamber music. Read more at Syracuse.com
by Caroline Manring Skaneateles Festival's second week gives us a taste of the best in music and the best in ourselves It's hard to talk about music. It's like trying to squeeze vast dimensions into little boats that will probably be swallowed by the ocean. Music can leave us speechless, breathless, frustrated by the ineffectuality of words. So it's no surprise that often the only means we have to talk about music, a slippery and oftentimes divine experience, is metaphor, a curiously powerful tool of verbal expression. Using metaphor not only allows us to express more accurately, but also helps us glue our world together by making connections between seemingly disparate things. Because of this affinity between metaphor and music, and also because fine food and drink have always been at the center of the Skaneateles Festival community (there's even a Festival cookbook - make sure you get one), you will have to forgive what I'm about to do. We're going to pretend that the following blurbs are the backs of wine bottles. Think of the effusive claims on wine labels of oakiness, spice, hints of blackcurrant and vanilla & perhaps a hint of gorgonzola, or lemongrass & is that-graphite? OK, now we're going to have a tasting of what you'll get to experience during Week Two of the Skaneateles Festival, titled Happy Birthday Felix! in honor of the inimitable Felix Mendelssohn and his equally enchanting cohorts and role models. In the spirit of really great birthday parties, things are going to get wild, so do your best to indulge these zany impressions, and you might find that this is a party you don't want to miss. Thursday, August 20, 2009 Handel, from Jeptha, HMV 79, Waft Her, Angels, Through the Skies: A fleck of goose-down blown gently over an empty lake. Filled with slow afternoon light. Tenor tones of honey and young grass. Removed from time. Mendelssohn, Auf flugeln des gesanges: A brook, moving actively but quietly through its stones, and a single bird, exploring through a slow, warm rain. Mendelssohn, Der Mond: a steady climb to the top of a stone staircase. Gazing out over hills. Fine weather, morning, a tiny gift held close, secret, ready to bloom in your pocket. Mendelssohn, Ventianisches Gondellied: Not a private grief or melancholy, but a dance of mourning for something larger than either, less reconcilable, gentler-if deeper. Friday, August 21, 2009 Bach-Busoni, Chorale Prelude: Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland: Two figures walk, side by side, not touching. They don't speak. The grass is up to their waists. They are grieving. Oddly enough, it's inside their swollen silence that this music is heard. Bach, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903: A storm arrives as unannounced as it is thick. There's no one to watch. The trees swirl, alone. Mendelssohn, Sextet for Piano and Strings, Op. 110: The keen and delightful brothers and sister are telling jokes in the evening to each other and their friends. They have all missed each other for a long time. This night is charged with their memories and hopes, tempered in its bounding energy only by a long-standing fondness and familiarity. Saturday, August 22, 2009 Mendelssohn, Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor (3rd movement): They've all been waiting, and here she is, finally, arriving in breathless mid-sentence from her travels, full of fun and daring. Everyone feels like a wind has swept in to tease them and leave them ruffled, confused, laughing. There's no stopping her, and no one wants to. They're transported by her stories, leaning in, urging her on. Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551, Jupiter: The good news is here, the sun is up, the day is fine, there's nothing to attend to but the grandeur you've always known was all around, and you now have the time and inclination to admire it fully. You and the landscape tease each other, glad of each other's presence, companionable, grateful, excited-definitely in cahoots. Now it's your turn: find out what worlds are in you when you hear this music. Oh, and happy birthday, Felix!
By Caroline Manring During my first notable encounter with the Skaneateles Festival I was mostly naked. OK, I was a toddler in a diaper on a hot summer evening. Apparently I squirmed free of my parents and began to dance, I think with my bottle in hand -- as soulfully, soberly and balletically as a toddler can -- to violinist Andres Cardenes' rendering of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," right below him on the Brook Farm porch (my grandparents' porch). My horrified mother tried to recover me, to put an end to the disruption, but to her great surprise, other listeners stopped her. They saw that someone, however small, was as moved as they were by the music. They wanted the scene to continue. It's unusual, I think, to begin a discussion about a music festival's first week, or any other news story for that matter, in the first person, and mostly unclothed at that. But the Skaneateles Festival is no ordinary phenomenon, nor is my acquaintance with it. For 30 years now the Skaneateles Festival has charmed and transformed its listeners (as well as its performers, volunteers, employees -- its entire family), and for 27 of those years I've been around to witness and take part in it. Andres isn't the only longtime festival friend, of course: There are dozens of musicians, founders and listeners who remember the festival as it was in its own infancy at Library Hall. The concerts started out small but promising -- full of the energy that has never since faltered. Michelle LaCourse was a graduate student in viola in 1985 when she met Lindsay Groves, a festival founder and "whirlwind of ideas and excitement." LaCourse remembers feeling extremely shy and insecure in those days, having come to her instrument relatively late in life for a classical musician (during her ripe, old teenaged years). But Groves paid this no mind, and ever since LaCourse filled in for someone (whom she fervently thanks for not being able to make it) that summer of 1985, she's felt the pull of the lake, the picnics, the close friends and the music in Skaneateles. She recollects how her heart raced as she neared the end of her drive to the little town -- here was summer, here was the very heart of it. So many people have a very similar, if not the exact same, story to tell: starting out young and insecure, feeling the waters (both literally and figuratively) in a tiny town on a lake, and blossoming with it, through it, because of it, beyond it, and, this year, back to it. Current festival co-artistic directors, wife-and-husband dynamic duo Elinor Freer and David Ying, have laid out a feast of living memories for us during the first week of the festival's 30th season, titled "Musical Memories." LaCourse will get to make the drive again, toting her viola, to come play with other longtime, then-and-now friends, including cellists Steven Doane and Rosemary Elliott, oboist Peggy Pearson, bassoonist Greg Quick, clarinetist Deborah Chodacki, violinists Mark Kaplan and Renata Artman Knific, and bassist Ed Castilano. Nearly as alive as the people in our memories is the music: Programming during the first week of the festival will include many of the pieces we feel nostalgic about -- at least as listeners. I tried to get some of the musicians I know to tell me how they miss the pieces they once played, too, but as it turns out, most of them really live for the moment, expressing a great fondness for pieces they've played in the past that's nonetheless outweighed by an excitement for the present and future stage. Andres Cardenes says the only thing he feels the loss of from those early years is the complete freedom: as a young performer he could concentrate entirely on his music, while now he has a wife and children as well as a full-fledged career. He, like so many others, celebrates these developments, whatever the attention they demand, because they've made him a fuller person and therefore a better player -- someone capable of bringing the depth of thought and feeling cultivated by these major life events to his music. Longtime festival friends and performers will bring their new breadth and depth of emotion and skill to the stage as they play such pieces as Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat major and Dvorak's Piano Quartet No. 1 (Thursday), Haydn's Divertimento in E flat and Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio (Friday), and Beethoven's Septet in E flat major and Bach's Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor (Saturday). And so, just as the musicians who have come to the Skaneateles Festival have blossomed, the festival itself has grown immensely. Yet not once has the spirit of the small, eager gathering at Library Hall been left behind by the now world-class phenomenon. In fact, I see it as uncanny and quintessentially "Skanfest" that my own sister, who also grew up among the visiting performers and is now a classical singer, will be performing on this first Saturday evening of the festival's 30th season -- weather providing, from her own grandparents' porch -- Bach's heavenly Cantata No. 51. The Skaneateles Festival, then and now, is a legacy embodied. To purchase individual tickets, week or season passes, to get more information, or see a full schedule of events, visit www.skanfest.org, call the festival office at 315-685-7418 or just stop by 97 E. Genesee St., in the basement of the beautiful Presbyterian Church. You'll probably encounter a young, budding musician-intern there who will be happy to get you those tickets. Manring is a granddaughter of Skaneateles Festival co-founders David and Louise Robinson.
Watch the Parker Quartet with Co-Artistic Director David Ying on Bridge Street with Carrie Lazarus
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